Fixing It
by Marnie
Summary: TJ and Colonel Young finally have that conversation they so badly need.


The universe is sliding slowly up the windows and she's trying not to think about death. She's especially trying not to think of the two years of slow dissolution that come before, when she can expect her own body to slowly suffocate her. She has many other problems she could be thinking about, but this one makes them all seem trite.

She doesn't want it to devour the years she has left, so she keeps shoving the thoughts down, but that's hard when she's alone like this and there's nothing to occupy herself with.

"TJ. This a bad time?"

TJ looks away from the overpouring of stars to see Everett... Colonel Young... standing by the bench. The observation deck is comfortably occupied – a couple in the corner playing cards, Dr. Inman lying on a bench with an open book fallen over her sleeping face. It's quiet and late, and for once there is no secret or emergency keeping them apart.

She's very glad to see him. This is awkward in a much better way. She laughs. "That is our normal style isn't it, sir? But no, actually it's fine."

"Well. What are the chances of that?"

At times she's thought that Matt's God would never stop punishing them, that neither of them would ever stop being forced to pay in bitter coin for their sin. They've been held apart when they most needed to be together, both of them unravelled and destroyed and only partially rebuilt. They've had only little sips of interaction since Icarus in which to forgive each other and salvage at least the friendship that they once had.

It's good that he wants to try, but it's typical too. Situations that Young can't deal with at once he wears down slowly until he can. She rather admires that.

"Have a seat," she indicates the other end of the bench, and when he sits she passes him her canteen of Brody's best three-year-old moonshine.

He looks down on it with an uncertain expression. She can practically hear him thinking that this was how it all started last time, and she's pretty sure that part of him – like part of her – would not be sorry if it went the same way again.

But of course, even though his marriage is now over, there's still the regulations. He's barely hanging on to his command of the ship as it is. The last thing he needs is to give the IOA an excuse to take it away from him again, like they did that disastrous time with Telford that nearly got them killed.

And she's... she's got Varro. Varro who is so _almost_ perfect. So very much _almost_ exactly what she wants.

He's so calm, so restful, so undemanding. He's like a quiet pool, across the surface of which she can skip stones. But it's hard to see beneath his surface, and she wishes she was more than _almost_ sure she had any idea of what was going on in his depths.

Because she can't forget for long that he was Kiva's second in command. Unlike poor, innocent Ginn, he _chose_ that life. He worked his way to the top of an organization that thrived on torture, that stole people's children at gunpoint and forced them into servitude. Drug barons, criminals, human traffickers, scum. Sometimes she thinks... she likes to believe that he's a decent man, but there are factors even she finds it difficult to overlook.

"I'll... I'll uh. I'll stick with the tea." Young settles wearily into rest a good foot away from her and pushes the canteen back into her hands unopened. He gives a rueful, apologetic little duck of the head that she doesn't like – it's too much like a cringe. She doesn't like to see him hurting. Which of course was also a factor, first time around.

"I figure I need to go cold turkey for a while. I pushed it too close to the edge as it is, you know?"

"Yes," she says, conscious that they're entering a minefield, waking up and trying to be alert. "That's a point. You don't want to become habituated."

Should have thought of that and not offered. Shouldn't have been hoping he'd get drunk enough to close the space between them, or that she would. Shouldn't have been hoping not to have to make a decision because the booze would make it for them.

"I'm sorry, TJ."

He's bowed over his empty hands, his back bent like the weight of the ship is pressing him down. A sideways look, awaiting rebuke, already half sure he's said too much, and she can't help but smile because in a way it's like dealing with a big, sad dog. If she could only tell him he was a good boy, everything would be fine.

"What about?" she says instead, not because she wants to make it harder, but because if you're going to excise rotting flesh you need to know where to cut.

He shakes his head helplessly. "Everything."

That's not good enough.

"Can you maybe narrow that down a little," she says and debates whether to throw in a 'sir'. But this is not that kind of conversation.

His head bows a little further and then he sighs, bracing himself. "Okay. Well, let's start with the drink. I'm sorry I fell apart and turned to drink. I seem to remember shouting at you, one time, when you were trying to comfort me."

_He shouldn't have made her have to comfort him. She was the one who was injured. She was the one who lost her baby. She was the one who was owed compassion, not him. _

There's a flash of anger like the pulse of a staff weapon, all searing bright for a moment and then it passes through her and it's gone. It can't get a foothold because it's unfair to blame him for that. Early on, he _had_ tried to comfort her and she'd sent him away because she couldn't stand to look at him. Nor had he asked her for anything – she'd stumbled on his solitary mourning by accident and just made it worse. And he'd lost his baby too.

"I don't know if I'd have forgiven you if you hadn't grieved." This subject isn't a lot easier than the other. She's trying to avoid the landmines, but they're everywhere. "There was a while there I thought you didn't care at all. So when you went off the rails, even though I was scared for you, there was part of me that was relieved. I needed to know you..." She bares her teeth to keep back the tears. "I needed to know you loved her too."

Her daughter had deserved a father who would have adored her. She _still_ deserved it, wherever she was now, even if that did mean two broken hearts rather than one.

His brows twist, and then he's looking away from her, hiding his face. The more he feels something, the less he's able to talk about it, so she waits with something like pity for him to force words past whatever barrier of masculine conditioning or innate shyness is closing his mouth now. She can read the love in the mute misery of his body, but she wants to hear it, wants him to make that effort, for Carmen, who deserved it.

"I... uh. I just..." A deep breath and a whole sentence, his knuckles white. "I didn't have any reason to go on. You know? And then she came along and she was all the hope I needed. Never. Never think I didn't... I just... I can't... I'm sorry TJ."

Now she is angry properly, with a cold, flexible anger like a scalpel blade, because he's always doing this, because she and Matt have exhausted themselves with worrying that every time he walks into a firefight it's with the intention of not coming out. It's not fair. It's _not fair_ to make them deal with this on top of everything else. "_What _are you sorry for?"

"That I didn't save her."

And that's a foot firmly on the explosives. It all bursts under her with a flare so bright she doesn't know what she feels for the moment. The hairs all over her body stand on end with it. But she's a medic. She's the closest thing these people have to a doctor, and a psychiatrist thrown in, and she will not speak until she knows what's going to come out of her mouth.

So she swallows _You should have_ because it wouldn't help.

She went into medicine because it was her vocation to heal, because if she sees someone hurting it hurts her too. There's no reward better than seeing someone smile after you've taken the pain away. She likes to think she knows better than to cause it herself.

Besides, it's not like he doesn't already know.

"You told me to stay in the infirmary," she says instead, because she also has things she yearns to be forgiven for. "I thought you were being overbearing, overprotective, that I could handle myself. I didn't think about her. I should have stayed."

He's hunched over his folded hands as it is, but he freezes, going solid, his face hardening, and that's how she knows that he's thinking _You should have._

Carmen would still be alive if not for both their bad decisions. They both killed her, and neither of them did. 'Life is pain,' Varro says, as if that's some kind of consolation. But pain is TJ's enemy, and she is not going to concede that fight just yet.

"It was Telford's plan," Everett says, and she feels a burst of fondness for him almost as strong as the regret – because he's refusing to blame her too. She's put it out there and she's been absolved. "I figure we blame Telford."

They laugh together, the humour watery and frail, but it's better, better than carrying the unspoken accusations around inside, thinking about them every time they spoke. "Blaming Telford is my favourite."

When he laughs he uncurls slightly, and TJ feels a sense of achievement on top of her own relief. That's very like the first time too. It had been kind of exhilarating, kind of a power rush to know she could make him happy. Not a lot did, back on Icarus. Not a lot does now. Honestly, she finds it hard to bear – watching him endure his unwanted life by dragging himself from one miserable duty to the next.

"Maybe I will take that drink after all." He smiles, and she smiles back. She's so tempted to say yes, but of course now she knows she shouldn't... and their bad timing must top all statistical charts. Surely they are some kind of freakish outlier on the spectrum of _not a chance_.

"Too late for that. You brought up the possibility of habituation, and as your medical officer I am obligated to tell you to stick to the damn tea." Maybe she's getting a little mellow, though. She sticks a quick "stick to the damn tea, _sir_," on there, to counteract the easy affectionate warmth she's trying not to feel right now.

It just strengthens his smile, because he likes it when she sasses him. There's a whole layer of things to her character that she rarely lets show. Varro only knows her calmness, her competence, the professional layer of nurturing that she puts on in the morning as she twists up her hair. But Everett's seen the things she doesn't let show, wicked and dangerous and glad, things that aren't decorous, things she's partly ashamed of herself. It means a lot that he loved them.

"I'm sorry I got you into all this, TJ."

And she swings right back into anger. Because fuck him if he's trying to take responsibility for her decisions. She'd just been thinking he was better than that. "If you're trying to say sorry for _this,_" she waves a hand to encompass the Destiny, their general lost-in-spaceness, "then don't, because we all know it was Rush's fault. But if you're trying to say you're sorry about _us_ then _don't. _I wanted you, so I took you. The only part of that I blame you for is ending it."

And being so bloody good at it. Being so pristinely professional that he had her almost convinced it had never meant anything at all.

"You know I had to."

He's gone back into the defensive crouch that makes her wish she had a baseball bat she could break over his back. Not that she would, of course, but it's soothing to think of it.

She knows why he thinks he had to. He'd laid out the reasons very thoroughly at the time – how fraternisation could destroy both their careers. How he couldn't live with himself as an adulterer. How he'd made a promise to Emily and he owed it to her to try his hardest one more time to make it work.

The worst thing was that they weren't the kind of reasons she could object to. She couldn't say "I don't think you should keep your promises. I don't care whether you can live with yourself or not." After all, she'd known he was married from the start. And she'd known he was not the kind of man who took his duties lightly – she'd have thought less of him if he had been.

It's a tidal anger this one. After the flood, it abates. She can't exactly blame him for doing the right thing. Should have seen it coming, really.

It's just so... it's just so _frustrating _that he chose to be unhappy when she could have made him well. Now they're stuck in this hinterland where he loves her and she loves him and neither of them can move forward until they let go. And she doesn't want to let go, and neither does he.

She sighs. "I know. What I'm saying is that I got myself into this, Everett. It's nice to know that you don't blame me, but try to remember that I don't blame you either." _Not anymore, anyway._

"You should."

"Well tough. I don't. So deal with it."

He snorts and then there's the flash of a smile. He has a great smile – it suits him. He should do it more often. But what are the chances of that?

"And I'm sorry, TJ." This time he's mocking himself and the whole conversation, though he shouldn't. It's been a good thing, and it's not his fault that he finds this sort of thing so hard.

She returns the smile. "What about?"

The smile falls as he looks away, fingers fidgeting at the top of his left index finger, where he could once have twisted a ring. "I'm sorry about the ALS."

The barrier she's built around it stays up. A force shield like Destiny's. She has no need to think about it right now, so she's just not going to. "I don't think even you can claim that's your fault."

"I'm still sorry."

It's good to have it said. Given how painful it was when he was pretending there was nothing between them at all, she wouldn't have liked going into her declining years not sure if he cared about that either.

"Not going to tell me I should live it up while I can?" It's a good argument for throwing caution to the winds and sleeping with Varro. She's got five good years to live, before the symptoms hit, might as well fill them. "Eat, drink and be merry, for in seven years I die?"

"That's not going to happen."

TJ puts her canteen down and tries to refocus the faint drift of her thoughts. It's not often he's _that_ emphatic without some kind of plan. "Why not?"

She's hoping he won't come back with some kind of reassuring platitude – she knows as well as he does that in the galaxies they have come to now, where nothing human has ever been, the chances of finding anything new to help are remote.

"Because we can always upload your mind into Destiny and put your body in stasis until we have a cure. I know it's not ideal but it's got to be better than dying."

TJ's train of thought stops dead in wonder. It seems to take forever for it to begin to move again in another direction, gathering momentum all the while. It changes everything if her literal dead line can be lifted. If she has as much time as it takes to fix the damn thing, and she never, ever has to face the fate she saw on the kinos from Novus.

Being stuck in the ship is not so bad. Amanda Perry had seemed delighted with it. Ginn less so, but she had agreed it was tolerable. TJ's hope, that keeps on being trampled, gives a little stir at the thought and sprouts green leaves like the stubborn dandelion it is.

_It's a hell of a lot better than dying._

All these landmines and she really hadn't expected one of them to contain joy. It blows her away. Before she knows it she's hugging him tight, and being hugged, and that's a mistake because with her nose pressed to his neck the scent of him is everywhere, and his arms are so tight around her she can feel her ribs creak. There's a reason this is a very bad idea, but her head is reeling with the hooch and the hope and the sudden swing out of joy and into need and... oh shit. Camile.

It's almost comical how much they've both mentally prepared for this. She doesn't flinch or recoil, nor does he, because they're just hugging, right? There are no regulations to prohibit hugging. There is nothing going on here that is not completely innocent.

After a moment she calculates to look natural, she pulls away, wipes non-existent tears from her eyes and looks up at his carefully constructed concern.

"You okay?"

There's the echo of an old, deliberate thrill in the back of her mind as she catches Camile's look of uncertain disapproval, but even though the plan to upload her has given her a better prognosis as a consciousness, she has only five good years left in this body. She can't afford to waste them on this.

She drops her face into her hands and sniffs to reinforce the impression that nothing had been going on but comfort. It was probably even true. Then she straightens up and nods. "I'm okay now. I think this helped, don't you?"

Camile's shoe scuffs the floor as the FTL lights cast her shadow over TJ's fingers, but TJ doesn't look at her. She wants to know what Everett will say.

"Talking? Yeah." He smiles. "Who'd have thought?"

And she doesn't care what Camile thinks, all of a sudden. In fact...

This idea arrives fully fledged in response to the possibility of a new future. In fact she may ask to be demobbed again. Her tour was over before this mission began. Young had reactivated her commission as an emergency measure, but they've been here for five years now, so it hardly qualifies as an emergency any more.

Oh that's a scary, exciting thought. She has loved the airforce, but if she left it now, nothing would change – she'd still be the closest thing Destiny had to a doctor. The only difference would be that Young would not be able to give her orders, and that therefore she would be free to see him or not to see him without incurring anybody's wrath.

Maybe she will only be able to make a final decision when she's allowed to choose either option. To be debarred from one choice makes the other one disturbingly coercive. If she does end up choosing Varro, for example, he doesn't deserve to believe that she settled for him because her first choice was unavailable. She doesn't deserve that either.

"I'd like a word, Colonel," says Camile, coldly, stiffly.

TJ gets to her feet in his defence. "Actually, Camile, I wondered if you'd have a moment to talk to me."

This is the opposite of a minefield. Who knows what's lurking under the surface, but there's the distinct possibility of joy.

Everett's looking worried, as he probably should. She doesn't want to jinx it by explaining, not yet, but she thinks she's probably going to choose him. Then she can finish the job she started on Icarus and fix him. And because it works that way for her – it always has – it just might be that she'll fix herself in the process.


End file.
